It feels like there's oceans
Between me and you once again
We hide our emotions
Under the surface and tryin' to pretend

-Oceans, Seafret

Jon Snow was a fucking idiot.

And he fucking knew it too.

He especially knew it as he approached the arm folded Arya Stark sat at the bar with a half-empty pint. She looked like she wanted to punch him in the face. Her eyes did not waver from his direction and he started walking quicker to escape her ferocious beady eyes.

"You don't look -," Jon was cut off by Arya actually punching him in the arm. He winced as he lowered himself into the seat next to her. "God, Arya… Do you feel better?"

She didn't look better, but after a brief silence as she continued to stare with furrowed eyebrows and a generally beastly expression, she softened (as much as Arya could soften) and gave a nod of her head, as if she was even surprised by her change in emotions.

"Yeah, I actually do."

"Should I even dare ask what I've done wrong?" He asked, cautiously.

Cautious… That was how Jon felt he now had to be this week after his awful start of being a gigantic, disgusting, enormous and vile asshole. Well, that was his interpretation of how he had acted and he was sure quite a few people would agree with him. He seemed to have caused unrepairable damage to his barely even started relations with Daenerys and now he had pissed off Arya for a reason unbeknownst to him.

"You've been ignoring me." Arya said bluntly, taking another swig of her pint. Jon looked for a bartender's attention as he realised he would probably need it if Arya was only just getting started with her annoyance.

"I haven't been intentionally doing so." Jon defended himself, still trying to eye one of the bartenders.

"Bullshit. You've been less responsive than usual – Sansa, Robb, Mum and Dad say the same and -,"

"Have you been discussing this with all the family?" Jon asked, practically waving his hand across the bar as he most definitely needed a beer now. Arya continued steamrolling on with her original dialogue.

"And I practically had to force you here tonight. It's my fucking freshers week, I should be the one who's mega busy." She continued to glare at him, now waiting for his rebuttal to her opening statement on his recent behaviour.

Finally a bartender came to his aid and he signalled for a pint of Carling.

"Oh, you can get me another too. Drinks are so fucking expensive here." Arya complained and with a sigh, Jon asked for another pint for her as she tried to down the remainder of her drink.

"I know, I know, but I have been busy," Jon began, taking out his card for contactless payment. Arya looked on the verge of saying something else, so Jon quickly carried on with what he wanted to say. "But… you know I've been busy with the event tomorrow and I wanted to ask if you would come. It'll be fancy, but free drinks all night."

Arya had been shaking her head adamantly as soon as he started discussing the event, but as soon as he said 'drinks' she paused to think, just as Jon thought she would.

"Uh no, Jon, you know I'm not the kind of twat who can stand at one of these things. Ask Sansa." Arya suggested, nudging Jon's arm, showing that she perhaps wasn't completely angry with him. Jon let out a soft chuckle at her suggesting Sansa.

"Already have, I knew you'd say no." Arya laughed now, taking her new pint as she had successfully downed the other one.

"But," She started and Jon dramatically groaned, he had thought this was over with by now. "I've seen you fucking busy before, Jon, and you're not usually like this."

"This has been more stressful."

Of course this had been more stressful than anything in his life, because he had never had the opportunity of a lifetime that he could only get if he beat a girl that he… Well, that he had slept with and then assumed the worst in, so hurt her more than he would have ever intended to do. It had been a pretty fucking stressful few weeks.

If he was honest with himself then he would say the job opportunity had actually been less stressful this week, because he didn't feel like he cared as much anymore… Well, he still cared, but some of his care was now tied up with Daenerys and so he couldn't care about the promotion as much anymore.

"Robb thinks it might have something to do with that Daniella girl, because you slept with her." Arya said matter-of-factly and Jon let out a frustrated sigh at all the things wrong with the sentence and the one thing that was right: it was definitely to do with that.

"Daenerys. And I really like the fact that all the Starks seem to be discussing me at the moment." He took a sip of his pint, the only good thing about this goddamn awful conversation at the moment.

"Come off it, only a little bit! And you didn't say that it isn't about her, so I'm thinking that's a yes." She was looking at him expectantly, as if he was going to suddenly open up and tell her everything that had happened. "Come on, I'm not a good listener, but I'll definitely tell you if you're being a bastard and what you fucking need to do."

He leant his elbow against the bar counter, resting his head in his hand as he considered it. There was perhaps no harm in telling Arya what had transpired since he last saw her; after all she was one of the people in the whole world that he was closest to and despite her confession of not being a good listener, she could be when she wanted to be. Jon had been holding it in all week, only complaining to Ghost about it and then spending the rest of the time concentrating on his work, because that was all there was to do right now and the only way to talk to Daenerys at all.

"Okay," He finally said, lifting his head to recount the story that had been Jon and Daenerys this week, deciding to skip across the whole sex part of it. "So… what Robb said was, yes, correct, but Monday some manager, Daario, who she was actually sleeping with before," Jon noted how confused Arya already looked by this story. "Well, he told me that her brother, who used to work at the company and is in jail for taking money from the company, was actually turned in by her."

Arya couldn't scrunch up her face more even if she tried. She looked beyond confused by what was happening at Jon's firm and he hadn't even got to the part of the story where he had fucked things up.

"And that was the big part of the story?" Arya asked, her voice matching the confusion she was displaying in her facial expression.

"No, obviously I had to speak to her about it, but I did for… all the wrong reasons. I guess I still had it in my head that she was playing games and trying to claw her way to the top. I thought she had turned in Viserys to show her devotion to the company – it sounds stupid now…" Arya looked even more confused, which Jon had previously thought was not possible, but she did and so he went back in his story to clarify. "What I mean by playing games is she was sleeping with her superior and she had tried playing mind games with me. That's not her though, I know that now."

"Sounds like it might be too late." Arya mumbled under her breath, before drinking her pint. Jon didn't know why he let himself be so shocked by that statement.

"Thanks… Anyway I accused her of turning her brother in to show she put the company in front of her family, but… I was completely wrong – her brother completely deserved to be put away, before he even stole from the company."

"So what happened then after you were a twat?" Arya asked, before giving an awkward, slightly apologetic shrug for her word choice.

"Well," He gave a humourless laugh. "I hurt her. I spent a long time apologising and she says she forgives me, but she just wants to be professional with me. I don't want that at all, but… I don't think she'll change her mind."

There was a silence between them, as Arya seemed to be analysing the situation, but she quickly turned to him, her tiny face full of determination. He readied himself for the attack that was bound to be thrown his way.

"Well, it sounds like you were a massive twat -,"

"As you've stated." Jon replied through gritted teeth.

"Felt like something I needed to restate. Anyway, what did you say when she said she wanted things to be professional?"

What had he said? He had to wrack his brain to remember the pitiful attempt he had made of trying to get it through to her that he was, yes, an idiot, but an idiot who had learnt from his misjudgement and wanted to make it right by taking her on a date or something.

"Uh… I said I didn't want that, but she wouldn't really let me speak."

And she hadn't really let him speak a whole lot more for the rest of the week. Of course they had been professional, like she had said they could be, but that seemed to be limited to email chains, texts (only about the subject matter at hand – the event tomorrow), courteous smiles in the office and the simple greeting of 'Jon' and 'Daenerys' when they were in any group meeting together.

"Well, you've got to tell her and show her that you were a stupid twat… Fucking hell, Jon, you've got at least put a little fight into it."

"It's uh… complicated."

Well, that was what Daenerys kept saying it was and he knew it was too, which was why he originally wanted to just follow her lead as she looked like she knew what she was doing, but now he felt like what he wanted with Daenerys was actually pretty fucking simple.

"Yeah, I gathered. I know fuck all about relationships, but even I know you should be doing more." Jon didn't reply, but Arya clearly felt like he should be. "So fucking talk to her."

Arya was obviously right. He knew he should be doing more, but he just didn't want to push it so much that they weren't even pretending to be professional and courteous with each other – he didn't want to go back to when she hated him way back before this promotion.

Was it worth it to just try harder if he could risk Daenerys turning him down in an even more horrible way?

It was definitely worth pretending to Arya that he was completely sold on the idea anyway.

"All right, Jesus, do you save all your swearing for when you're with me?" She didn't respond, but just hit his arm again.

"And Daario sounds like a right dick." She mused, after a short silence brewed between them.

"He is."

Jon was all too happy to agree with that sentiment.

Although he still had no fucking clue why Daario told him all that – obviously to ruin any relations Jon and Dany might have, but how did he know there was anything there to ruin?

They finished off another pint before Arya announced that she was pretty much using Jon as a pre-drinking session before she headed off to another Freshers party. He could have been offended by it, but he was happy that Arya seemed to actually be enjoying her time in London so far… despite the expensive drinks, difficult to understand accent and that nobody seemed as welcoming as they were up North.

"Thanks for meeting up with me." She commented, as they got outside the pub.

"Did I have a choice?" Jon asked, a laugh escaping him as he asked it.

"Absolutely not. I meant all my physical threats against you." Arya replied, grinning at him now, clearly showing she had forgiven him of all his shortcomings from the past week. "But seriously, I hope it all goes well tomorrow."

"You and me both."

But he actually wasn't so sure how much he hoped it all went tomorrow. He knew that he wanted it to go well for Daenerys and he must have still wanted it go well for him, but his head was filled with the stuff with Daenerys and so the event was surprisingly not at the top of his priorities.

"And talk to her." Arya said with a pointed finger in Jon's direction, as if she could read his mind. He merely gave a reluctant nod before outstretching his arms to encapsulate Arya in a tight bear hug.

"Have a good time tonight." He said as a goodbye, both of them smiling widely at each other as they went their separate ways.

"I'll see you Sunday, right?" Arya said as her version of goodbye and Jon simply nodded.

They had facetimed Sansa during their drinking session and agreed to have dinner around Jon's on Sunday basically so that Arya could get her first home-cooked meal in a week, to hear all about the event and to, most importantly, find out from Sansa what Daenerys was like.

He wished he could take Arya all the way to the party, but he knew she would be kicking and screaming all the way if he made her feel any less independent than she was, so he let her navigate London to get there and after all it was only 9PM and she had Google maps.

Her advice of talking to Dany was sitting with him and he knew because he had alcohol in his system now that he was obviously going to make contact with her, because Arya was right – he had to fight a little bit harder than he had.

He didn't want the awkward professionalism that lingered there and he didn't have to accept the fact that Dany simply wanted them to have nothing to do with each other.

It was bullshit what she was saying about this all being a mistake between them, because of this whole promotion; soon that would be over with and would they just be left with this fake professionalism still?

He reached for his phone from his thick grey coat and was shocked that he didn't actually have to make contact with her. Staring up at him was one missed call from her and a message saying:

Office. Now.

He walked out of the lift on the floor that he and Daenerys worked on. This was the most impulsive thing he had done since he went to her flat the weekend before. He had just replied to her text with what seemed to be a word he used far too frequently in his texts to her: 'Okay'. Then he rushed over her as if his life depended on it. His mind didn't even run through what this could be about – he just knew that Daenerys wanted to speak to him and that was enough.

But as he stood in the lift he realised that due to the event being tomorrow this was probably, almost definitely just about work.

And as he stood in the middle of the office, not seeing her at her desk or at his, he figured this was all an elaborate revenge prank, but then his eye caught the lights on in the small office that once belonged to one of the old Finance Directors… or something like that, he couldn't really remember, but he did remember that it was the office where Daenerys had met him to first apologize and to shake his hand.

He saw her little figure sat on the floor and realised this would now be the office where he apologized to her yet again.

He approached the door cautiously, noticing as he got closer how she was surrounded by literally hundreds of papers sprawled across the entire floor.

"What the -," He said, bringing her attention to him all of a sudden. She looked confused for a mere second as to why he was there, but then she looked almost manic. He wondered how long she had been sat on that office floor, looking at these papers, whatever they were, and he realised then that this was probably not about work.

She stood up in a hurry, three sheets of paper scrunched up in her hands and then before he could even process what was happening, she thrusted them into Jon's chest and he weakly took them from her. As soon as he took the pages, she let go of her hold on them and turned wide-eyed away from him to begin pacing the floor.

"Read them." She bit out, her hands gripping her hair as she continued to pace.

He was scared to look at the pages. He was scared that it would be something that made her angry at him, but he hadn't done anything. Apart from the absolutely terrible thing he had already done and she knew about that – he couldn't have done something worse than that.

With the confidence that it couldn't be about him, he straightened the pages out and read them. He was confused – it looked like a payment out to a vendor or something. How would this get Daenerys so angry?

"Payments to a company called… Quality Produce?" He asked with the confusion apparent in his voice. He was still staring at the paper, willing it to make sense to him and then he saw it and his head shot up. Daenerys had stopped pacing and just stared at him with her wide eyes.

Right there it said approved by Viserys Targaryen and so he knew this must have been the way that he embezzled.

"I knew that's what I was looking for, but I noticed something else." She approached him and pointed out the other authorising signature on the document. "All the other payments he signed off on have different managers, but the same one is on every one of these… It can't have been something overlooked."

He glanced between the violet pools of Dany's eyes and her hand pointing right at that other authorising signature: Cersei Lannister.

"She knew?" Jon asked stupidly, because there was nothing else left to ask.

"Jon, she must have!" She began pacing again. "I confronted Daario about what he told you and he said that I wasn't the first to know and I think this is what he meant, so Cersei knew and must have been benefitting somehow? Maybe… maybe it was money she could hide away somewhere without taxes or maybe she was sleeping with him or… or something!"

Jon stopped looking at the sheets and just stared at the beautiful emotional mess that was Daenerys Targaryen right now. He had only ever seen her in complete control of herself, but now she was losing it.

He did the only thing he could think of and blocked her path of pacing and took her in his arms. She seemed to shake slightly in surprise, but more to his surprise, her arms fell limply to her side and she let Jon hug her. Her head rested perfectly against his chest and her breathing eventually seemed to be returning to normal. For a second there was peace there between them, but only for a second. She raised her head once more to look up at him, her arms still slightly tangled up in his.

"If Daario knew then so did others, Jon. What do you think I should do? Or should I just not do anything? I think I should talk to Tyrion, but…" Her voice trailed off, she sounded as lost as she looked and Jon was sort of at a loss as well.

He would go to Tyrion too. After all he was the person in charge at the moment and unless Daario found out about this in a different way then Tyrion must have been one of the first to know – he was related to Cersei after all.

Jon was more at a loss to why, after everything that happened between them, she had asked him to come here? Her inviting him had to prove that they could never just be merely professional again, right?

And that possibility was always going to be more important than his dead CEO putting money aside with Dany's brother.

"Why have you asked me here?"

He had to get straight to the point; he always had to do that.

Daenerys had clearly still been expecting him to tell her what she should be doing with this information and so her big eyes blinked slowly at his new question and she looked as if her brain was working in overdrive to come up with an answer.

"Huh? You know, although I wish you didn't, about all of this and I do trust your opinion, so who else would I ask to advise me on what I should do with this?" Her voice was quiet and Jon didn't know if that was more hope that she was throwing at him or if he was reading far too much into it.

"Right, but just on a professional level?" He asked, taking it as hopeful.

"You think this is a good time to be discussing this?" Her voice had a tinge of anger and desperation in it, forcing him to re-evaluate this conversation.

No, it wasn't. Not for Dany and as he was the one who had been in the wrong he had to respect that.

Knowing where he stood with her might have been far more important to him than what had happened in the past with her brother, but it wasn't the same for her. He wasn't as important as what went on with her brother to Dany.

So he knew that this wasn't what she needed – to be harassed by him with his questioning about something she seemingly didn't want at all and so he decided to be what she needed, a supportive hand.

And so with a sigh, he dropped the whole conversation and everything he could have said, but shouldn't.

"Tyrion genuinely doesn't seem like his siblings and I think he's the best person to take this to, but what do you want from this?" He asked, noticing the relief in Dany's face as he went back to this topic. It was her turn to sigh and turn away from him, to stare at the mess of papers on the office floor.

"All I wanted to find out was who knew before me, but now I'm not so sure. This information means the company I've been working for since I graduated has been completely corrupt all along and I don't want that – none of this would have been worth it. I mean the only reason I'm here is because Viserys got me in with a job and I've just stayed… maybe because that was easier than actually going out by myself without a Viserys and without a Daario helping me along the way." She gave a completely humourless laugh as she turned back to Jon with those fiery eyes. "Kind of sad that men have ruled my career for me."

"You've got to this stage by yourself."

She gave him the briefest of smiles as if to say, 'Don't joke about this' and that was probably the moment that, if Jon looked back on all his moments with Daenerys, he would say he knew that she was the most wonderful woman he had ever met. He couldn't unsee it from that point and couldn't want anything less than a relationship with her.

And that was absolutely ridiculous though, because he wasn't one to fall into these things quickly, yet here he was staring at Daenerys with adoration as she continued to obliviously stare at him.

"It doesn't feel like I've achieved a whole much though. These past few weeks have made me realise that: this revelation, Daario, you… For the first time I'm actually uncertain about things."

He didn't want to see her like this, because she did deserve that promotion and sometimes he thought she deserved it more than he did, but this was so much more than this. He got where she was coming from, because he couldn't work for a company that just accepted corruptness like this – if he had found out about this when Cersei was still in charge then he would be handing his notice in.

"Look… if you talk to Tyrion and you think this company is still just as corrupt then I'll be walking out with you if that's what you're saying." He walked closer to her as he said all this and delicately stroked a finger along her clenched fist; as if by magic she then opened her hand and looked remarkably relaxed by that action.

"Okay." She smiled at him for longer now and didn't take her eyes off him as if she was seeing him in a new light and Jon hoped for his sake that she was.

"We've got a really long day tomorrow, so I can tidy this up and you can get some sleep." He smiled back at her and before he got too distracted by her, he got on his knees and started filing the sheets, unsure where exactly he was going to put them all.

"Jon, thank you." She knelt down beside him for the briefest of moments. Her hand went to rest on top of his, definitely distracting him from sorting the sheets out. "I do forgive you; you're one of the good guys."

So that night Jon was realising that he wanted to be with Daenerys, and nobody else, and Daenerys was seemingly realising that he was one of the good guys.

To Jon, that was everything. He knew, as he watched her get her coat and leave the room in silence, that he would be replaying that very moment in his head for the rest of the night.